A Year In Minutes
by Berry Smoothie
Summary: Leah One-shot. A summary of one year of her life after Breaking Dawn. Leah moves to Seattle, she writes a book, gets over Sam and Emily, falls in love, breaks up, makes friends and loses them, and is finally close to happy.


Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight

She was listening to sad music while packing. Maybe it fit her mood; she reasoned and reached for her black bra. She didn't really want to do this, but there had never been a choice, now, had there? Not that she gave a damn.

Leah fondly remembered the day when she had realized she was over Sam and Emily. It had been warm, a September evening, with the sun shining through leaves that were just starting to turn yellow. The day had sucked; her only real friend in the city, Penelope Fernandez, had moved to L.A. a few days back and she was still lonely, and her bills had started stacking themselves up, and she had gotten completely wasted the night before with a girl named Suzanne who was pretty okay and worked as a secretary, which just put her lack of a decent education into the forefront of her mind.

And so she had been dragging her groceries home from the supermarket when it came to her: at least I'm over Sam and Emily.

And it had struck her in that moment just how true it was, and the next minute she was standing at the door to the shitty apartment she wasn't even sure if she could afford the rent for, and she forgot her previous thoughts. A few months later, the same thought struck her mind again, though, and she had mentioned it in an email to Penelope, who had just moved in with her long-term boyfriend, Lucas.

Penelope had jokingly suggested that she write a self-help-book slash memoir, which had made Leah laugh and then think. Somehow, all the thinking led to some actual writing. How many pages had she written that first week? Something around 15, she supposed, which seemed like so little but took hours and hours to write. Half of it was complete bullshit, though, because half of the time she was either sleepless, like a zombie, or partially drunk.

But she still sent a copy of her text to Penelope, who read it over, had a good laugh, and then sent her an email proclaiming that her friend liked it and thought she should write more.

By some miracle, over the next few months a real heap of words added themselves on to her text. Leah wrote about heartbreak, betrayal, relationships, she wrote about feeling trapped, losing loved ones, growing up poor and then not being able to pay her own bills sometimes. She wrote about moving away, about having friends move away, about idiotic neighbors who spent all of their time yelling at each other. And somewhere in between, she discovered that even though she was only twenty, she had had a very … filled life so far. Many experiences, she supposed. Almost all of them were negative experiences, but still.

At this point Leah had started taking classes at a local college. Sue had been very surprised when Leah had requested that she please send her high school diploma over, thanks.

She no longer phased, but was convinced that she still _could_, if she really tried. Leah had her own little theory that since vampires were still nearby (the Cullens had moved away but occasionally nomads wandered through Seattle) her body was on stand-by, so to speak. She wasn't hell-bent on quitting anyway; somewhere, sometime, she had stopped caring about the wolf inside her.

At this point it was late March and getting warm again. Her hair was thick and reached down past her shoulder blades, and when she went to the hair salon to have the tips cut off, she ended up waiting for over 2 hours and started up a conversation with the girl next to her.

The girl happened to be named Cecile Ledgerson. It was through Cecile that Leah met Jordan Williams, a guy two years older than her who wrote for an internet "newspaper". They met a few times for coffee and he helped her with her writing, and eventually, a self-help memoir cross-breed was created.

On their fifth get-together, Leah kissed him. He was good-looking and had kissable lips, but they both agreed that they would rather not date. Leah herself had been surprised by the kiss even though she had initiated it. She didn't know why. Maybe she needed to get laid, she thought.

She had started to work as a waitress at a medium-class restaurant not far from her apartment. It was tiring work but earned her money, without which she was absolutely screwed. She was solid in her resolve never to go to any of the La Push People, as she called them, for favors, and Leah didn't want anybody to know she had been having financial trouble for virtually the whole time.

She began hanging out with Cecile and her friends. They all had considerably more money than her and sometimes she found herself comparing her situation with theirs. They did have it better than her, it was a fucking fact.

In the middle of April, she sent her self help memoir manuscript out to many publishing companies and agencies, not expecting any answers. Still, she was awfully disappointed when a full month passed and she had only earned herself 6 rejections.

When Leah received a card in the mail telling her Sam and Emily were engaged, she stared at it without any emotion. Maybe she should be feeling sorry for Emily, she considered; after all, she was stuck with a guy who loved her for her uterus. How romantic. She sent them an email of congratulations, not sure of the standard procedure for such things. The only wedding she had ever been to had been that of her cousin Julia, _very _many years back.

Then Leah started to date a guy named Clayton who was in college. He was tall, European and smart, not to mention very good to her. He was at her side at a few special moments: when she turned 21 and could now get _legally_ wasted, not that that had ever stopped her and her false IDs before, when she got a letter saying an agent had read her manuscript and liked it and _they had accepted her (!), _when the plumbing in her entire apartment block broke and she had to stay with him for a week.

They slept with each other, they exchanged I-love-you's with each other, they went on a road trip to San Francisco together and Leah could honestly say Clayton was exactly what she needed.

Then they broke up, and she spent an entire week crying on Suzanne's shoulder, who had somehow turned into her best friend. To better deal, Leah started writing about her experiences again, which helped. Somehow, a lot of her writing was about painful break-ups. She wondered what that said about her. Probably nothing positive.

On top of all that, Leah was now working on getting her book published. The concept was still awfully surreal to her. Real, honest to goodness people would buy her book and read it. How crazy was that? Maybe she would even get rich.

Hell, who needed rich? All she wanted was a little more cash, which was still pretty tight, despite her still jobbing as a waitress. This was all just temporary anyway, just until she figured out what kind of job she wanted to have and graduated from college and all that. She had been trying to get her hands on a weekly magazine column, which she managed, although she secretly suspected that nobody read the _Casella_ anyway. Still, it was a start.

In November, the wedding invitation came. The date was sometime in January, which was awfully surprising since Emily had always wanted an outdoor wedding, which was obviously not going to happen now. She's probably pregnant, thought Leah, and shoved the invitation somewhere unknown.

Life turned into something routine. She worked at the restaurant, she wrote her column, she paid her bills, she worked with her agent and editor on the book. She met regularly with Suzanne, occasionally with Cecile. Once, she met Jordan Williams again. They greeted each other somewhat awkwardly but ended up having a nice conversation. He had gotten into stocks, as it seemed, and turned himself into a real somebody. Impressive.

And it got cold and then colder, and before she knew it, Leah was packing a suitcase to take to La Push for the weekend, which was all that she could take off from work, anyway. She had chosen a light purple cocktail dress and silver heels, Suzanne had given her approval. Leah couldn't decide whether she was excited about the La Push visit or not. I have no comment, she decided, for once in my life I have no comment.


End file.
